The hardest thing that I have ever encountered in my life…
Is going through the waves of Motherhood while not owning who I am, not knowing my personal power and trying to simmer my own fire.
There are many moments, where my inner voice would be placed on the back burner to make other people happy. Or I would bite my tongue on things that I believed were unjust, or unfair because of fear of ruffling up feathers and not being liked for being difficult or opinionated.
As a 33-year-old woman, responsible for 2 little girls… I am attempting to own who I am, and this requires constant awareness, practice on a daily basis and being present in moment to moment situations.
As anyone would assume, changing your automatic behavior is difficult when you are doing it alone, or when you aren’t entirely sure of the method or process to do it in.
I have seen the results where when I do bite my tongue, or put my own values aside, does for me and the relationships around me. It creates an unpleasant feeling of being unworthy, that I am not important to speak up for, that I am not valued as a person and that essentially, I am not good enough.
When I don’t stand up for who I am and my beliefs, these negative feelings come up for me, and unhealed wounds get evoked from childhood… I will recall moments where adults around me, did not stand up for me and did no show me that I was valuable enough to speak up for… and somehow as an adult, I have replicated this into my own life.
I will be damned if I do this to my children… so I must be more aware of this with myself, stand in my own voice and personal beliefs and be unapologetically myself.
6 Ways to be Unapologetically Yourself
1| Gain a deep level of Self-Awareness
In The Boss Mom Mentality, I dedicate a whole chapter on the value of Self Awareness… there is real power in knowing yourself well, knowing your strengths, weaknesses, triumphs and failures.
Having the ability to spot these aspects about yourself allows for true knowledge into who you are becoming and what you need to do, to become a better version of yourself.
2| Know Your Triggers
Another principle that is in The Boss Mom Mentality is a topic on Emotional Triggers. Knowing what your hot buttons are, and how to understand this about yourself and others is key owning who you are and what you stand for.
When you know how to operate with your Emotional Triggers, you too can operate around other people’s Emotional Triggers.
Know this about yourself as it creates for a multi-dimensional characte… not only are you kind hearted and self aware, you also know your darknessess, which are your emotional triggers.
3| Understand Your Weakness
Understanding your weaknesses actually is a step forward in making those weaknesses a strength of yours.
Shining light to what you need to work on creates a conscious effect that permeates within your actions and behaviors in situations.
This helps with knowing what you need to do to bridge those gaps within your weakness and turn them into strengths.
4| Reflect on your Day to Day Interactions
Reflection is huge… in this case you want to look back with your day to day interaction and see what you could have done better, or you could have communicated differently.
Reflecting helps with understanding your future behavior and making correction to how you respond or how people respond to you.
5| Embrace being Confrontive
Remove the notiom that being confrontive is this terrible thing in life. Welcome it, for it creates a synergy of communication, passion and clarity.
Being open to what opens up for you during confrontive situations helps with aiding in strengthening who you are.
Welcome the uncomfortable conversations so that you can own your power.
6| Make a Vow to be Consistent
It takes practice and consistency to make any change a habit.
We are creatures of habit, to break a habit takes more energy… you must see the value in breaking the habit of biting your tongue, the habit of placing other people’s feelings first, the habit on making yourself unworthy of standing up for yourself.
See the value of speaking up for yourself, see the value of placing your feelings first and making yourself worthy to stand up for yourself. Your children will see what you do and replicate this within their lives… allow them to see the value in themselves, by being that for yourself.
Conclusion
Becoming unapologetically yourself doesn’t just automatically happen, this character gets cultivated, developed and perfected over time and with practice.
This is not an easy change for me, especially if you are more of people pleaser, or someone whom cares of others feelings or a natural empath. So this change is difficult, but it becomes easier with time… it is a muscle you develop not something that you just turn on in one day.
My goal is to gain this for myself so that when I am parenting, I can show up for my children and show them that they are valuable to stand up for… it creates a personal sense of value and will be a huge impact on their character when they become adults.